"...The Armenians and Greeks were determined not to let this booty fall into the hands of their hated enemies."

  "... Many Armenian young men disguised either as women or as Turkish irregular soldiers... were caught setting fires Tuesday night and Wednesday morning."

 Nearly everybody in America, it appears, is convinced that the Turks were responsible for the fire which added the final touches of tragedy to the Smyrna [Izmir] horror. The unanimity and firmness of this conviction surprised me at first, as I believe it would have surprised anybody else, of whatever nationality or political allegiance, who had recently come from the scene of the disaster. The motive, usually considered of supreme importance in crimes of this sort, does not clearly point to the Turks. They had captured Smyrna. The city, as it stood, was one of the greatest prizes ever taken in Oriental warfare. The Turks had unquestioned title to its foods, its commodities of all sorts, its houses. It was a store house of supplies most urgently needed for its peoples and armies. Why destroy it?

It was a matter of common knowledge, on the other hand, that the Armenians and Greeks were determined not to let this booty fall into the hands of their hated enemies. There was a generally accepted report in Smyrna, for several days before the fire, that an organized group of Armenian young men had sworn to burn the city if it fell to the Turks..

Evidence gathered by Paul Grescovitch, Chief of the Smyrna Fire Department, and carefully checked by myself, together with information which came to me from other sources, points to the Armenians as authors of the fire. The series of events which led up to the final terror on the Smyrna waterfront, as I was enabled to follow them, began in the first days of September, when Rear Admiral Mark L. Bristol, United States High Commissioner at Constantinople, organized the Smyrna Emergency Relief Committee in anticipation of what might happen in the city if it fell, as then seemed inevitable, to the Turks.

The USS Destroyer Lawrence, under command of Capt. Wolleson proceeded to Smyrna, carrying this committee, of which I was a member. We arrived on the evening of Friday, the eighth of September [1922], in time to see the last of the Greek army leaving the city...

One of the most serious situations that confronted the committee was the possibility of fire. This situation developed into one of extreme anxiety when we learned that the entire city police department, together with nearly all the Greeks who were members of the fire department, had deserted their posts and fled the city in fear of the approaching Turkish army. I made it my business to make a general survey of the situation, and I found that the fire fighting forces consisted of approximately sixty men with two small station houses. I found two reasonably good fire engines and about half a dozen hand machines that were used along the waterfront by dropping an intake hose over the sea wall into the water. There were only a few buildings in the city over three stories high, the great majority being two...

A report has been widely circulated in this country to the effect that the Armenian hospital, where some fifteen hundred refugees had gathered was burned by Turkish soldiers who slaughtered many of the helpless occupants. The truth of the matter is that on Tuesday, early in the afternoon, in response to an emergency appeal, I had gone to the hospital accompanied by Dr. Post and two nurses, all of us members of the Near East Relief Staff.

While I was there a squad of from fifteen to twenty Turkish soldiers, under the command of the captain, came to take over the hospital for Turkish military purposes. The refugees were searched, as they came from the grounds, and arms of various sorts sufficient to fill a truck were taken from them. All of them, men, women and children, who had taken refuge both in the hospital building and in the adjoining grounds were dispersed by six o'clock that afternoon. The captain in command had written instructions from the Turkish commander to take possession of the hospital and to prepare it for immediate occupancy. He told us that they would begin moving Turkish patients to the hospital that night. He also mentioned that he had orders to shoot the refugees if they had refused to disarm, and that he certainly would have done so but for their unexpected docility in giving up their weapons. He credited their willingness to disarm to the presence of the Americans, Dr. Post, the two nurses and myself....

This photo was identified in a Greek site as the city's Christian residents being trapped between the flames and the sea. Waitaminnit. Weren't the Christians supposedly massacred by Turkish troops? And weren't there any Turkish residents left in the city, who could have been trapped? (Sigh.)

On the following morning, Wednesday, the thirteenth of September, the situation was critical in the extreme. Paul Griscovich, Chief of the Smyrna Fire Department, told me that he had discovered bundles of discarded clothing, rags and bedding, covered with petroleum, in several of the institutions recently deserted by Armenian refugees. Grescovich impressed me as a thoroughly reliable witness. I had met and had a long talk with him three days previously, on Sunday morning. Fortunately, I needed no interpreter, as he speaks English fluently. He is an engineer, born and educated in Austria, and has been identified with several large engineering enterprises in Turkey. Twelve years ago he became chief of the Smyrna fire department, which he continued to conduct in a very efficient manner, for that part of the world, during the Greek occupation. He told me that during the first week of September there had been an average of five fires per day with which his crippled department had to cope. In his opinion most of these fires were caused by carelessness, but some undoubtedly were of incendiary origin. The average number of fires in a normal year, he said, would be one in ten days, and the increase to five a day seemed significant.

As soon as the Turkish military authorities assumed control, Griscovich had applied for additional men and fire fighting equipment. Instead of helping him, the Turkish military governor, learning that there were still Greeks in the fire department, ordered their immediate arrest, which left the department with only thirty-seven men. Sunday night, Monday and Monday night, and Tuesday, so many fires were reported at such widely separated points that the fire department was absolutely unable to deal with them. They were extinguished by Turkish soldiers.

During Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, the Turkish soldiers shot down many Armenians who, they claimed, were caught throwing petroleum and starting fires in the Armenian quarter and also around the warehouses and station of the Cassaba Railroad. It was on Wednesday morning that Griscovich himself found evidences of incendiaries. He told me that early that morning had seen two Armenian priests escorting several thousand men, women, children from the Armenian schools and Dominican churches where they had taken refuge down to the quays. When he presently went into these institutions he found petroleum-soaked refuse ready for the torch.

The chief told me, and there is no doubt that he was sure of it, that his own firemen, as well as Turkish guards, had shot down many Armenian young men disguised either as women or as Turkish irregular soldiers, who were caught setting fires Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.

At 11:20 Wednesday morning, at least half a dozen fires were reported almost simultaneously around the freight terminal warehouses and the passenger station of the Aidine Railroad.

It is noteworthy that these fires broke out in buildings which it was greatly to the advantage of Turks to preserve, and to the advantage of enemies to destroy.

At 12:00 o'clock five fires were reported around the Armenian hospital. At about the same time, two fires were reported at the Armenian Club, and a few minutes later several fires started simultaneously around the Cassaba Railroad station.

Shortly after noon Griscovich, convinced that the city was doomed, again went to the military authorities to ask for help, and again it was not forthcoming. It was not until six o'clock in the evening that he was given a command of 100 soldiers to serve under his direction and it was eight o'clock at night before the soldiers began the destruction of buildings by bombs, in order to check the spread of the fire.

Early in the afternoon, I was at the headquarters of Kazim Pasha; Turkish military governor of the district, and from his window I could see smoke from several parts of the city. I called his attention to this, but he assured me they were of no consequence. He said that he had been worried about the possibility of conflagration, and that his soldiers had received instructions to prevent it. When I left him I made an appointment to return at five o'clock that afternoon but the fire had spread so rapidly, the people had been driven from their homes down to the quay, in such numbers and the panic was so great, that I found it impossible to reach his headquarters to keep the appointment. During the afternoon the wind began to rise and blow from the Southeast which I was told was most unusual at that season of the year, and by night a perfect gale was blowing. People who had lived in Smyrna many years told me they had never known a wind of such violence during the summer months. Dense smoke and sparks were blown across the decks of the US Destroyer Litchfield, which after midnight was anchored 780 yards offshore.

It was not until three days later that I saw Grescovich again. He told me he had no sleep for five days and nights and he looked the part.... On that, and several succeeding days, we explored the great part of the burned area of the city, and I made notes of the most important things he told me. Later, when Lloyd's men came to ascertain the extent the damage, he refused to make any statements at all.

During several weeks after the fire I had an opportunity to talk with many Turkish commanders, and they were all of one mind in leveling either bitter or philosophical accusations at their enemies for destroying the city. They were contemptuous of the suggestion, made in a few quarters, that they had any responsibility for the burning. "Why should we burn the city?" they would ask. "Smyrna, with all its wealth and treasure, was ours. The fleeing Greek army had abandoned huge quantities of military stores and food supplies that were desperately needed by our armies and civilians. These have been destroyed, together with the warehouses and stations where many fires broke out. Besides, the fleeing Greeks and Armenians, many of them wealthy as you know, had abandoned everything in their homes and their stores. We were in absolute and undisputed possession. Do you think that we are such fools as to have destroyed everything?"

My attention has been called to many statements published broadcast in this country that the Turks were seen pouring petroleum around the American Consulate. I was in the vicinity of the Consulate most of the time and saw no petroleum.

It is a fact worthy of attention of the honest historian that very few people in Smyrna at the time of the fire, or during the succeeding weeks, believed that the Turks were responsible for it. That the Turks were grossly...negligent in the matter of ordinary precautions against an outbreak of fire, we all realized, and that they were tragically inefficient in fighting the fire was obvious to us all, but I have been able to find no evidence that either Turkish soldiers or Turkish civilians deliberately fired the city or wished its destruction.

The evidence all points in another direction....

From The Turkish Times, Sept. 1, 1998

"Prologue" from www.ataa.org

 

Mark Prentiss was behind another article, from the Jan. 1924 Atlantic Monthly, called "Actualities at Smyrna." (On this page you can also read attempts by pro-Armenians to discredit Mark Prentiss, and whether they make sense.)

The above is fairly intact, but the complete version may be accessed in "Appendix I" of Prof. Heath Lowry on the Burning of Izmir


ADDENDUM, 10-07:  A version of a published newspaper article of the above has been found; see link, page bottom.

A 1923 view from American writer, E. Alexander Powell

 

Now I can readily understand and make allowance for the public's errors and misconceptions, for it has had, after all, no means of knowing that it has been systematically deceived, but I can find no excuse for those newspapers which, clinging to a policy of vilifying the Turk, failed to rectify the anti-Turkish charges printed in their columns even when it had been proved to the satisfaction of most fair-minded persons that they were unjustified. A case in point was the burning of Smyrna in September, 1922. There was scarcely a newspaper of importance in the United States that did not editorially lay that outrage at the door of the Turks, without waiting to hear the Turkish version, yet, after it had been attested by American, English, and French eye-witnesses, and by a French commission of inquiry, that the city had been deliberately fired by the Greeks and Armenians in order to prevent it falling into Turkish hands, how many newspapers had the courage to admit that they had done the Turks a grave injustice?

 

E. Alexander Powell, "The Struggle for Power in Moslem Asia," The Century Co., New York & London (1923), pages 32-33.

 

 

Below are excerpts from an October 21, 2002 letter sent to Governor Pataki from Yuksel Soylemez, which borrowed heavily from Stanford Shaw's two-volume "The History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey."

On May 15, 1919, under the protection of the British, French and
American fleets, a Greek army disembarked in the harbor of Smyrna (Izmir) and occupied the town. Smyrna was Greek Premier Venizelos' reward for having finally brought Greece into the war on the Allied side, and some thought its acquisition might even mark the opening of a new chapter of Greek expansion. Three-and-a-half years later these dreams were shattered; the Greeks' eastward advance had been halted by Mustafa Kemal Pasha at Sakarya, and in August 1922 the Turkish counterattack was launched and proved devastatingly successful. Now it was the turn of the Turks, in hot pursuit of the remnants of the disintegrating Greek army, to occupy Smyrna. On September 13, 1922, in the midst of the carnage, a great fire broke out that destroyed more than three-fifths of the town. No one knew from whence the first spark came; however, a secret letter from the Greek Committee to MAVRIMIRA is rumored to have established the hour to ignite the fire. Who knows if it is true?

...While retreating from Sakarya, the Greek army burned some 100 towns in western Anatolia and destroyed an entirely Greek and Armenian community that had prospered in Izmir during Ottoman rule.

Stanford Shaw on Greek slaughter and killing

To quote extensively from historian professor Stanford Shaw, "Mustafa Kemal's assignment to Anatolia was followed almost immediately by the Greek invasion of Anatolia, this more than any other, stimulated the Turkish War of Independence. The United States and Italy opposed the British and French efforts at the peace conference to secure territory for Greece around Izmir. Legal justification for the landings was found in article 7 of the Mondros Armistice, which allowed the Allies to occupy any strategic points in the event of any situation arising which threatens the security of the Allies'."

Professor Stanford Shaw

"The Greek armies landed amid a wild reception from the local Greek population, with church bells ringing, priests kissing the soldiers, and men and women falling to their knees before their 'liberators.' The landing was followed by a general slaughter of the Turkish population. Greek mobs roamed the streets, looting and killing, with those Turks who escaped being arrested by the Allied authorities. The Greek army began moving into Anatolia, ravaging and raping as it went, with the local Greek population taking the opportunity to join in the massacre. By the end of July 1919 the Greeks had overcome the local Turkish defense forces and gained control of the greater and lesser Menderes valleys, a far more extensive advance than the Allies originally had intended. Greek atrocities, not only in the southwest but also around Trabzon, where advocates of a Pontus Greek state had anticipated the arrival of the Greek army by instituting massacres of their own to remove the Turkish population. Thus encouraged, Kemal traveled through the east spreading his message among commanders, governors, mayors and local resistance forces, with the Greek advance to the Menderes strengthening both his resolve and the response" again in the words of Shaw.

Shaw on the Pontus propaganda:

"In north-central Anatolia, efforts unfolded to establish a Greek
state in the ancient Pontus region, encompassing the districts of
Samsun, Amasya and Sivas. A secret Greek society looking for such a state had been established in Merzifon in 1904, and it had developed into a widespread movement, giving the Greek government a golden opportunity to press its claims. On March 9, 1919, British forces landed at Samsun and went on to occupy Merzifon, leading Greek bands to revolt openly and to slaughter their Muslim neighbors in the hope of founding the new state. Order was partly restored, but with great difficulty, by the Ottoman police helped with some reluctance by the British."

History in a nutshell

"Origin of the term 'Pontus' is 'Pont-Euxin,' in ancient Greek which
is the Black Sea now. The emergence of Hellenic influence in the
Black Sea region can be traced back to the Ionians, who established Greek type city-states in Sinop and Trabzon in the VI. century B.C. The Macedonian King of Philip and his son, Alexander the Great, drove the Persians out of the Southeast Black Sea Coasts and consolidated Greek influence in the region. Following the takeover of Istanbul by Catholic/Latin Europeans, the Byzantines living in Istanbul emigrated to the Eastern Black Sea region and founded the Kingdom of Pontus. Despite the fact that it was unable to maintain full and effective control over the region, the Pontus Kingdom managed to survive for some 250 years and later came under the domination of the Ottoman Empire in 1461 following the conquest of Istanbul by Fatih Sultan Mehmet."

Who committed war crimes?

Who committed "genocide" in the Black Sea region during the Turkish War of Independence? Was it the Turks or the Greek bands? "In the first part of the twentieth century when the Ottoman Empire was fast collapsing ethnic Greek irregulars, armed and encouraged by Greece, operated in the Turkish Black Sea coast regions. Banditry by these groups often resulted in the slaughter of Turkish villagers. Some 40 ethnic Greek bandit groups plundered Turkish villagers and murdered at least 2,000 Turks. After the 1918 Armistice Agreement, Greece and the Greek community in Anatolia tried to take advantage of the weakness of the Ottoman Sultan in maintaining effective control in the region and the Greek irregulars attempted to create an ethnic Greek state on the Black Sea coast modeled on the ancient state of Pontus. The American High Commissioner, Mark Bristol, in a report he wrote after a journey along the Black Sea coast, drew attention to the anarchy which the Greeks were fomenting."

Greek designs

"On July 7, 1920, the Athens Pontus Committee, in a memorandum delivered to the Greek government, proposed that 20,000 well-equipped men from Pontus should be sent to inland districts of Anatolia to support the invading Greek forces. The very fact that the armed irregulars of the ethnic Greeks in the Pontus numbered 20,000 which reveals the magnitude of the threat they posed to the Turkish civilian population in the region. While public disorder persisted in the eastern Black Sea region, the authorities of the Allied occupation forces in Turkey deliberately misrepresented the precautionary measures taken by the Turkish security forces as 'genocide'."

Fictitious and fabricated figures

According to Greek claims there were 700,000 Greeks in the eastern Turkish Black Sea region, and that 350,000 were killed. This is again a clear distortion of history. "The population of Greeks in the region according to Greek claims of 700,000 is far from truth and fictitious according to census reports."

"The King Crane Commission, authorized by the American government, reported on August 28, 1919 that the estimated number of Greek residents in the eastern Black Sea region was about 200,000. According to the Ottoman census held between 1893 and 1897, the Greek population was 193,000, as 322,500 Greek residents of the region had emigrated to Greece."

Finally it seems unfair and unjust the allegation of a "genocide" of
350,000 Greeks is a fictitious and fabricated figure to many.
"History thus points not to the Turks but to the Greeks as the party
that should apologize for the war crimes committed during its
invasion of Anatolia and the atrocities committed by Greek bands in the Black Sea region. Article 59 of the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne refers to the war crimes committed by Greece in Anatolia."


Holdwater; The Pontus Greeks had practice; a Pontus rebel king named Mithridates butchered 80,000 Roman citizens around 88 B.C., later to be stopped by the Roman general, Sulla. (Thanks to Conan,)

  Dr. Georgios Nakratzas' Open Letter

 

The Greek Minister of Culture has put before the Greek President a proposed law that would make September 15th a "Memorial Day" in remembrance of the "Genocide against Greek inhabitants by Turkish forces in 1922."

The proposed law refers back to the Greek-Turkish War. Such a gesture by the Greek government would fuel nationalist sentiment in Greece and elsewhere in the Balkans. Below is a letter from Dr. Nakratzas, which eloquently articulates this sentiment.

 

To Mr. Evangelos Venizelos
Minister of Culture
Athens - Greece


Rotterdam 10 February 2001

Dear Sir,

I was interested to learn from reports in the media that on 9 February 2001 you forwarded for signature to the President of the Republic of Greece a Presidential Decree, in accordance with which 15 September is to be declared the official day commemorating the Genocide of the Greeks in Asia Minor by the Turks.

As Minister of Culture you will, I assume, feel a great respect for the historical truth, and I ask you therefore to permit me to inform you of certain details concerning the Genocide of the Slav-speaking Macedonians of Kilkis committed by the Greek Army in 1913, in addition to certain information on the crimes committed by the Greek Army in Asia Minor during the period 1919-1922 against the civilian Turkish population.

The Carnegie Report (ISBN 0-87003-032-9) informs us that the town of Kilkis was occupied, intact, by the Greek Army on 4 July 1913. Having occupied the town, the Greek troops removed the remaining residents and then plundered and burned their houses. The Report also mentions that in addition to the town of Kilkis the Greek Army also put to the torch 40 villages in the region, burning a total of 4,725 houses.

Of the total number of 100,000 Slav-speaking Macedonians who were thus obliged to seek refuge in Bulgaria, the Greek cavalry caught up with 4,000 at the village of Akangeli. 60 of the men were taken to a nearby forest and never heard of again. On the following day, according to eye-witness accounts, the Greek soldiers committed murder and rape and stole money. The committee were also given a list of 365 individuals from neighbouring villages believed to have been massacred by the Greek army at the village of Akangeli. Finally, a European eye-witness testified to the committee that on entering the town of Yevyeli the Greeks executed 200 Bulgarian citizens.

I do not know if this historical information will prompt you to recommend an additional Presidential Decree concerning the Genocide by the Greek army in 1913 of the Slav-speaking Macedonians of Kilkis.

As for the information on the crimes of the Greek army against the civilian Turkish population of Asia Minor during the period 1919-1922, there is insufficient scope in a short letter for a full description of the events involved.

I shall confine myself to mentioning in brief the massacre by the Greek army of Turkish civilians at Aidini, Menemeni and Pergamum.

I shall also mention the slaughter of Turkish prisoners of war in Smyrna on the day the Greek army disembarked in 1919.

Finally, I shall mention briefly the burning of thousands of villages in the areas of Eski-Sehir, Uzak, Kioutaheia, etc., as well as the destruction, robbery or looting of shops and businesses, and the seizing of vast quantities of livestock and grain from Turkish villagers. For more details and eye-witness testimony I recommend that you consult my book, recently published under the title

ASIA MINOR AND THE ORIGINS OF THE REFUGEES

The imperialist Greek policy of 1922 and the Asia Minor Catastrophe Batavia Publications, Thessaloniki 2000, ISBN 960-85800-6-4

I ask myself if the information you will find in the book will be sufficient to prompt you to recommend the appropriate Presidential Decree.

Yours,

Dr. Georgios Nakratzas (The Netherlands)

P.S. For your information, a Turkish translation of the book mentioned above is shortly to be issued by a publishing house in Istanbul (Constantinople).